The starting tutorial of Elden Ring is apparently being missed by plenty of the game’s players. As one of the most anticipated games of the past few years, it’s unsurprising that a whole lot of people are excitedly jumping into the game, whether or not they’ve ever played one of developer FromSoftware’s previous Soulsborne titles.
Less than two weeks after the game was released, Elden Ring reached Steam’s sixth most-played game, achieving a peak concurrent player count of over 950,000. Even those who've never played a FromSoft title are curious about the title due to its overwhelming popularity, which has led to lots of people being unprepared for the game's tough-as-nails gameplay. While creator Hidetaka Miyazaki has expressed sympathy for those unused to the difficult gameplay, players are very much left to figure out most of what the Lands Between can offer.
Redditor Veenendaler shared an image of just how players are ending up missing Elden Ring's starting tutorial. The image shows the cavern in which players end up near the start of the game, Fingefolk Hero's Grave, which includes a staircase and an arched doorway leading to the actual start of the game, along with a glowing NPC sitting on a chair beside a pit that leads to the tutorial. However, despite the NPC and the glowing messages left by other Elden Ring players, people still end up not finding out that jumping down the hole will lead to the starting tutorial and instead run straight through the doorway and begin the game.
Elden Ring’s tutorial section gives players an opportunity to try out and get acquainted with many of the game’s combat mechanics, including using stealth to backstab enemies, melee attacks, magical attacks, and more. The tutorial also rewards players with some Runes from killing the enemies within. However, even before gaining access to the starting tutorial, players are almost immediately given a taste of what they’ll be facing throughout their playthrough. When players spawn into the game, they quickly find themselves face to face with Elden Ring’s Grafted Scion tutorial boss.
While Elden Ring's starting tutorial isn’t necessarily required to learn the game’s mechanics, it does make starting out a bit easier because of the additional knowledge it can grant players as well as the Runes that it rewards. It’s also very characteristic of FromSoftware to make the game’s starting tutorial easily missable and require a bit of trust on the part of the player due to having to jump into a dark pit to access it.
Elden Ring is available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC.
Source: Veenendaler/Reddit